#because he's a horrible person. literally a slave owner.

[fangsandfeels]

"Everyone gets along because there is a threat", yadda, yadda, yadda.

Bullshit. This is not how real scenarios work and it has never been.

russia is a global threat right now, but the world can't decide between sucking its dick and politely asking it to stop because the mere thought of confronting russia makes it shit its pants. The very few countries who scream into the void, warning about russia and telling people to wake the fuck up are ignored and viewed as crazy doomsayers.

This is how real crisis looks like. Nobody works together against a threat because people are spineless cowards who would rather throw their neighbors under the bus than fight. Nobody learned anything from history lessons, books or survivors.

The only difference in a fantasy game is that NPCs end up having more spine and moral principles than real people.

But in Veilguard, everyone gets along because they have NO reasons not to.

Davrin has no real reasons to beef (if you can call it that) with Lucanis because he is a Grey Warden. He knows where Grey Wardens take their conscripts from. He knows that Grey Wardens regularly recruit mages who are a lot more likely to get possessed if they're not careful. Working with an assassin who knows friend from foe isn't the worst thing ever. One subtle warning about taking action if demon takes over is enough.

Taash has no reasons to antagonize Emmrich aside from horrible writing.

Neve gets along with Bellara because writers gave Bellara a happy childhood with her family and turned Dalish artifacts into Apple store gadgets, while refusing giving Neve any nuance as the citizen of Tevinter.

Emmrich gets along with everyone because he is generally a kind and well-mannered person who doesn't like to stir the pot.

Any companion who could have had a sharp edge, got that edge ripped off and a cartoon band-aid slapped on.

Never doesn't deal with people who don't know about Shadow Dragons (and they probably shouldn't know much because when you work against a powerful government who wants to destroy you, you shouldn't show off), so she constantly has to deal with the fact that people assume she is a noble or a slave-owner because she is from Tevinter; that they don't know that she had to literally fight against being enslaved herself because in Tevinter mages who refuse to use their power to dominate others are turned into slaves as well.

Bellara isn't conflicted about working with humans, especially Tevinter humans at all. She seems to never have dealt with oppression her whole life and she is super quick to write off Cyrian as evil even though there are clear SIGNS that he was tricked and controlled by the Forgotten One. But no, she never thinks "He is still there, I can save him, I won't lose him again", she goes straight to "Oh nooo my brother is dead to me".

Emmrich doesn't get burdened by people reacting to him and his sincere intention to help with fear, because of all the sinister rumors revolving around necromancers and Nevarra. He isn't hurt by people assuming that he loves death and things dying. If even he openly admitted that he is deeply terrified of death, they wouldn't have believed him.

Harding isn't burdened by the revelation she learned and what to do with it. Should she storm her way to the Orzammar? Should she talk to fellow surface dwarves and reconnect them with their history? Should she never breach the subject because the truth hurts and it's too much pain, too much anger to live with - and maybe she shouldn't let other dwarves go through it?

We don't even have a party divided on what to do with Solas (kill or talk it out)? Even though it's logical to have companions who are convinced that Solas has to die and those who think that he is misguided and can be convinced to stop.

Also, there are NO companions whose background, viewpoints and attitude would rile other companions up. We have no controversial characters whose interactions with the crew Rook would have been forced to intervene in unless they want their team to start throwing hands with each other.

We could have had Imshael - to give EVERYONE a reason to worry, and argue, and have conflicts. We could have had an ex-Venatori Calpernia bashing heads with Neve, Bellara, and Emrich. We could have had a Qunari spy who'd make Lucanis' dagger-arm itch.

If writers didn't forget about the Architect, we could have had an intelligent Darkspawn companion Davrin could be losing his shit around.

Or heck, we could have had a former red templar who got partially (magically?) reversed from their mad state and is now not a mindless beast, but still is on a borrowed time, probably needed due to their strength, but barely tolerated by anyone.

Who is fanatical, mostly because they have to believe they made a noble sacrifice, that it all was for the greater good -- because the truth scares them to their core. Who gives Lucanis shit for being an assassin and abomination, who bashes necromancy, and mages, and talks about purity, while downplaying their own actions as "Yes, these are my sins, but they are for the better world, and I would be proud to die for that world unlike you heathens who would rather ruin it than repent for your flaws". The kind of companion you'd initially want to do nothing with, but who can reveal an entire gallery of fucked up contradictions and trauma if you decide to keep them around.

However, writing such companions takes skill, courage, and requires absence of greedy corpo "we don't want to scare away new players with all that moral nuance" thinking.

[maxzinn]

off topic but also on topic its so clear that the genshin/star rail (saying both cause theres a large overlap) have no capability of thinking.

there are so many fics where *reader* somehow becomes a (sex)slave or is forced to do horrible shit and just general dead dove behavior. the fact that the author used INGAME LORE, CANON BACKSTORY FOR THE CHARACTER proves how braindead so many people are.

like people try to free slaves/captors in media isnt a new thing. theres a lot of art of that angelhusk ship where one gambles for the others freedom (never watched it but its an example)

like having slaves/captors in media isnt new and never has been but the only reason people truely care is because its a hoyoverse game and cant handle anything darker or complex then a PG rating

(sorry anon, I got carried away with this one tee-hee)

YOU'RE SO REAL FOR THIS!!! y'know I was sooo confused when people started screaming for blood when the authors are using his IN-GAME LORE in their fics and then claims that the people who enjoyed writing those have "white-knight syndrome" like cmon sjsadhjg you're giving me a fucking stroke.

I'll say it again, wanting to give slave aventurine or someone a better life DOESN'T mean they have "white-knight syndrome" when they have good intentions!!! We were all were crying for him and his tragic past, we all wanted to comfort him, and we at some point also wished for his salvation and the betterment of his life. These people need to stop throwing these "white-knight syndrome" accusations cuz it's definitely not about that. And like you said, it was his IN-GAME LORE. I already expected some authors to write about reader saving him from his slavery and there's nothing wrong with that! Cuz please, don't tell me you won't help the guy out of his abusive owner, let's be fr here.

Like you also said, many have been writing yandere/heavy dark themes about reader being literally SA'd and R'd by said character (do not tell me you guys haven't read all those fics where Aven was our debt collector and in paying our debt, he noncon or manipulated us into sleeping with him 💀) and now they wanna talk about morals?

And please, don't even try bringing up Romania or irl people in here. IT'S A FICTIONAL RACE IN A FICTIONAL STORY. it may be "inspired" like they said, but it's not directly addressing Romania!!

I get their point alright, I truly do. Like I said in my other post, I do not condone the sex slave! aus about aventurine and the master/slave bdsm cuz his story truly hurt me and I'm uncomfortable sexualizing his slavery when I know about his story and what happened to him as a slave. But I won't go as far as to actually send death threats to those authors and act like a hypocrite💀 people can write what they want to write and I don't have to read those writings if I don't wanna.

Just to say, I'm a yandere/dark-content enjoyer as well, it's just that I draw the line when it comes to aventurine cuz I just wanna cuddle and dote on that man and give him all the love and affection in the world. but like I said, am no hypocrite as well. (sorry if I can't explain it very well but I hope you get the gist of it)

It's just funny and baffling how people are like "eww this person wrote a fic about reader buying slave aventurine so they can be a good owner to him".... this is leaving me speechless how they turned an act with good intentions into something malicious... that poor author doesn't even have bad intentions when writing that fic.

When you apply their logic, it's like saying "this person adopted an abused child so that they can be a good parent to that child, disgusting" do they even realize how stupid they sound??? 😭

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 3

Propaganda why Alexander Hamilton is insufferable:

"Literally sick of hearing about this guy and his musical. I do not care about Lin Manuel Miranda's masturbatory self insert-ification of an actual slave owner but. He is everywhere. Rapping stupidly. Also just a shitty person even in the play. "Show me how to say no to this" easy, N. And then an O. I wish I never had to hear about Hamilton. And I hate his voice. That's annoying too."

"Only cares about himself. When he fears he's going to get outed for cheating on his wife, he is not concerned for Eliza's wellbeing whatsoever, he's just concerned with his reputation.

Dumb as fuck. When his son wants to duel, he tells him to *attend the duel bc the other guy will be nice and miss on purpose*.

Written to be The Most Desirable Man Ever™️. Self-insert (derogatory). The way he treats other people and the way he refuses to learn lessons make listening to the musical impossible."

"He's so annoying?? And full of himself?? Gotta say I quit watching after the intermission because I could not deal with him. No redeeming qualities."

Propaganda why Jimmy is insufferable:

"The most chillingly real depiction of one of those men that think the world owes them everything. He's a rapist, a misogynist, abelist, self-centered, abusive, terrible friend and person that gets everyone killed because he was big mad about being laid off. It shocks me that there are apparently people out there that play the game and like him. He's so evil, but never in a way that makes him cartoonish, and that makes him all the more terrible. The game lays it out itself: he won't take responsibility for anything. He is never the villain in his own eyes. Scumbag."

"Tbh he's not just insufferable. He's disgusting. I can't even list all the horrible things he did because they would need multiple trigger warnings. He thinks that he's so high and mighty to the point where he betrays his own captain so that he can take his place, and then blames his actions and the ship crashing on said captain, who was actually trying to save them. So all of the crew died in one way or another (because of Jimmy's actions) thinking that their captain betrayed them when really if was him. And a quick Google search can tell you all the really nasty shit that he did. So not only is he insufferable, he's also just a horrible human being."

"Listen, I'm not even in the fandom and I know what his ass did. Screw this guy"

"Bro never takes responsibility for anything he did. Assuming he even acknowledges it *vaguely motions at what he did to Anya*"

"SA, causing a ship to crash, murder and elongating his friend's suffering in a cryopod for 20 years"

"He's literally the worst. He's a rapist, he framed his friend for attempted murder-suicide after getting him mutilated, and he either directly or indirectly killed everyone else. He's such an unreliable narrator that it's difficult to tell how the others of the Tulpar crew actually are because he sees everyone as beneath him."

"rape, murder, just generally being an asshole"

"LITERALLY A RAPIST"

[mermaidsirennikita]

Louis de Pointe du Lac, as originally written, could be regarded as one of lit's most famous "also rans", someone who was originally positioned as Thee Tragic Figure of the series, only to be almost immediately superseded both in the readers' and the author's minds with Lestat. Like, you know Louis because of the original book, but Lestat is the one everyone talks about, Lestat drives the rest of the series, Lestat has all the best lines.

And the movie, as much as I personally don't like it, only sort of dug this further into the pop cultural understanding of the story. Brad Pitt is at his most "I am relying on pretty" boring and sulky; when there is a performance, it's largely annoying. And Tom Cruise... I mean, it's literally nothing next to what Sam Reid does in my mind, but it was at least very off-brand for him at the time, and he was doing SOMETHING, and he (and Kirsten Dunst) have the most iconic Moments, the camp, the arguably most memorable part of the movie (the very end with the Sympathy for the Devil cover playing us off).

So it's honestly SUCH a testament to the innovation of the show's writing and the brilliance of Jacob Anderson's performance that Louis has been reinvented, not only as a compelling protagonist, but as a character that is EASILY as complex and multilayered as more traditionally antiheroic/villainous types like Lestat and Armand and Claudia. He's more than the beautiful, tragic object of Lestat and Armand's affections, he's more than the guy telling us the story.

Louis is self-loathing and self-aggrandizing; he's victimized by Lestat, and he manipulates Lestat, very aware of his own emotional hold over him (might we note how much agency Louis had over Claudia's turning, and how Lestat in no way would've done that if not for Louis... and that act was arguably one of the most selfish in the series, if emotionally understandable). He's controlled by Armand, yet we get hints that he's actually quite dangerous and perhaps in some sort of self-delusion about just how dangerous he is (and Assad certainly plays Armand like he's nervous as fuck about Louis knowing the truth--and I don't think that's JUST about the possibility of Louis leaving him once he finds out).

Louis tells himself that he loved Claudia more than anything and that she was his "spark in the dark", when we see that in reality their relationship deteriorated over time and continued to do so, even after the person who was seemingly a wedge in their relationship was vanquished. We see hints, perhaps, that Claudia was no more the ideal daughter in his mind than Lestat was the ideal lover.

And that last scene in the premiere? When we're not sure who the "you" is? Sad and kind of horrifying, too. Because like--what will Louis do to Claudia to further his own love and obsessions? Who does Louis prioritize more--Claudia, Lestat, Armand? Maybe none of the above. Maybe himself and what or who he thinks will stave off his own loneliness, his need for love and validation and, yes, power.

None of this is a criticism of the character. The show already did something SO good and SO smart by turning Louis from a white slave owner to a Black man with money and social standing, still so held back by the laws and environment of his day. Vampirism gave him agency, yet the show, in season one, showed the potential for Louis to still be the perpetual tragic victim (in episode five especially). And maybe they'll still slip up and do that.

But increasingly, with the reveal in the s1 finale and the s2 premiere, I think we're getting the implication that the thing Louis could be protecting himself from mentally (with some help from Armand--I don't think Louis's memory issues are all Vampire Magic, though) is something horrible that he did. A choice he made. Because Louis does have agency, and the narrative allows him to be someone with conflicted desires and a complicated sense of self. Someone who doesn't love PRETTILY. Someone who is manipulated and manipulates.

Like, I've joked about him being this kind of like vampiric Helen of Troy because of the allure he holds for powerful figures like Lestat and Armand, but I also think it's so powerful to explore the way that Louis uses that appeal and ALSO makes fucked up decisions on his own because he is... into being adored, frankly. Even if the people who adore him also hurt him. He gets caught up in his own romanticized retellings of his life story, whether heartfelt or tragic, because in those retellings he can pretend that he had no choice, he had no ability to say otherwise.

But like--Louis could have stopped that woman from being decapitated, potentially. Louis didn't have to walk away from human affairs. He chose to do so, just like he chose to beg Lestat to turn Claudia. Just like he chose to deny her Lestat's true death.

And I think there's like, an attempt to reckon with this in the unreliable narration of the books, but I also think that this is so dependent, in Anne Rice's version, on spinning to Lestat... That Louis's culpability and untruths are overshadowed by his Everything. Here, the story lets us soak in Louis's mind, and Jacob Anderson's performance really seals that. I find it so smart.

[timingmatters]

Okay I’m on ep 27 of the remarried empress and while i started out HATING Rashta i do have to say i have come to feel bad for her. She was a slave who was used by a rich boy she SERVED to (the power imbalance of it all) and then abandoned with child, then made to believe her child was killed (or maybe sadly it WAS killed). She is clearly uneducated and has suffered a lot. In an empire where it is known nobles take lovers outside of the marriage and its seem as normal, I can’t blame her for using her charms as survival with the emperor. And while to me the issue is not that, but rather that she sees too quick and comfortable putting other women and the empress in harm’s way to get her way (absolutely not justifiable), I do feel like so far as of chap 27 she is clearly super uneducated and being used by all these different men. She took advantage of the emperor’s attention to survive, but it was HIM who constantly disrespected the empress first. The former slave owner (who either had her believe he killed her child or actually did, so absolutely FUCK him) is using her too. And now this other guy seems to be playing with her too but I feel like he might be using her for a bigger plan. She seems younger than the empress too. She is super uneducated, traumatized, young as hell, and out of her depth. Can’t say she is a bad person for trying the only thing she has (her looks) and use them for her own survival. And given that the empire has slavery as legal, I can’t put it on her if she also feels animosity towards nobles and blames the empress too. Like, is not even that she was an illegal slave, she was “legally” abused as a slave. If the empire had slavery as something illegal that would be much different. In her position i would also feel little remorse about what I’m doing in order to survive around people who both legitimize and practice slavery.

All that said, it is clear since the beginning she still takes pleasure on fucking up the empress, which has always been uncalled for. I truly hated her, but the more I see of her background the less i dislike her. I still don’t like her at all, but its silly and blind to treat her as the biggest enemy on the story when it is clear all these men keep using her and that she is a victim of the own system put in place. So far in the story (i keep emphasizing that because I know the story is ongoing on s3 with like 140 eps so things might change drastically) but kinda just want her punishment to be to go away. No physical harm, no jail, no nothing. Her biggest crime has been to break a marriage, which she did as a means of survival. Like, she really didn’t do anything THAT evil. It is horrible but like her own experiences were more horrid and those people bared no punishment because her slavery is legal. Again, can’t blame her for much. I’m sure most women would do the same in her position so far. How could you not? Is literally survival. Surviving vs simply becoming a lover of a marriage between rich people (where taking in lovers is legal) is not the worst crime ever.

I do hope the story demolishes the practice of slavery by the end. To continue to make her a villain and have slavery as a legal and “fair” system would SUCK amongst a story otherwise interesting enough with lovely art would be a waste (and I LOVE when the ML is pathetic and whipped over the FL, so I love how much he blushes).

[funnywormz]

the toshiro hate discourse is crazy on twitter and tiktok lately. not only they're hating on him for being a jerk to Laios but also having a crush on Falin. they're saying he was hypocritical for liking Falin's personality when she's very much the same to Laios, the guy he find annoying. and also for being in the way of Marcille x Falin ship.

now I love the Farcille ship but dear lord do you have to go this far just to hate on toshiro.

one last thing, this one I don't see alot but is so awful and is that some fans think toshiro is a slave owner (??) cus his family bought izutsumi and tade to work as fighters wtfff

YEAH i find the people who hate on toshiro because of farcille odd because he doesn't even get in the way of it? like he just has a crush on falin but she doesn't feel the same way about him anyways. it's also strange when people act like falin and laios are exactly the same and call toshiro a hypocrite for liking falin. falin is very gentle and kind whereas laios is definitely a bit more loud and abrasive at times. i think toshiro struggled to be around laios because laios was overstimulating and exhausting for him, whereas falin wasn't any of those things. they're two very different people so i don't think it's weird that he likes one and dislikes the other

i think maybe the "slave owner" criticism has a little more merit? because his parents do literally own them, and izutsumi at least had a curse put on her by maizuru which was meant to prevent her from escaping. so like....... they are literally slaves and are under the control of his family/maizuru. although toshiro doesn't own anyone himself and was just a kid when his parents "bought" tade, izutsumi etc., he's still complicit in the aspect that he still uses the labour of these people. he does know it isn't right, and has considered talking to tade about it, and lets izutsumi go when she escapes. but he doesn't make any effort to free them himself, doesn't ask maizuru to remove the curse on izutsumi, and overall just seems to view the fact that his family are slave owners and human traffickers as something mildly uncomfortable rather than the evil awful thing that it is.

i don't think toshiro is a bad person, and he does know what his family is doing is bad, but he's also a very passive person. he's so reserved and anxious about social interaction that it interferes with him telling the truth to laios, but also gets in the way of him properly criticising or standing up to his father in a way that would make a difference, or making a big step like actually talking to tade about how her situation isn't fair at all. so yeah while it wouldn't be accurate to call him a slave owner, i think he is somewhat complicit in the practice of it and deserves criticism for that

idk i don't think toshiro is a horrible person as some in the fandom paint him out to be, and there are a lot of ways people insult him that are just straight up mischaracterisation/projection/etc. but at the same time he isn't perfect and i think there are valid reasons for people to dislike him. but i definitely do agree with the first part of this ask in that most of the reasons people have for hating him are just rlly silly lol

(i hope i approached this topic properly btw, i know slavery is a very dark and sensitive topic for many people and the last thing i would want to do is undermine the severity of it)

[theuniverseawakens347]

You want to have a child but don’t want to have conversation with them so how many of you ended up with abortions 14 at prep pregnant or 16 or got STDs in your parents don’t know about them or got DIY ( DUIS- indian love Morgan tanning salon crystal graduation nice car recycled dick knees jeep.. Crystal left n you stayed brought Morgan in ) … ( at autocorrect NOPE TOU HOS IS ATUPID) and your parents don’t know about them or arrested your parents don’t know about it Had car accident. Your parents don’t know about the major whopping of money that your parents don’t know about!?

Speech text…

It is the major things that have happened in my life that revolve around a big sum of money. My adopted parents know about the minor things. I never had an abortion. I never stole drugs off of anybody all of these worse fucking fears for me ar things that have literally happened to her, that’s weird. You put your projections onto me but not take care of you but put me in psych words that I don’t need and make me fucking homeless and then say I’m choosing to throw my life away bitch you’re living in my ancestors house you fucking slave owner ( India love all the money you have is off of my family. You help set up for fucking murder life insurance policies or you back ended robbed will.i.am’s fucking music studio for some fucking money just to be caught on your fucking knees horribly sucking dick sorry, POPS ) 

THEN AFOPTED THE QUEEN OF THE WORKD .. and discarded Jerel like sac of empty rib slab…

This is how your mental work. This is how your life look that’s why your friends fucking left. You the ones who were the closest to you when I first got into the house and no longer support you and Howard. They’re checking in, but they legitimately do not give a fuck they’re trying to see if there’s fucking change. I haven’t been around you for about 2 1/2 months straight and nothing has changed on Lee Garlington‘s end and not on Howard either ( behind the scenes sure but not to the face .. so again you journal but not putting in action - rightful family has a due date .. BUT ALSO YOU CUD HAVE FIXED BEING IN PUR LIVES MISS “I wana adopt you to give you a better than than your birth family that’s big shot celebrities cause TRIATAN looks small and trash - based on his hair )

… that’s weird of you he was handsome on FaceTime then ya see em in person and just

“He’s not good enough” … you watched me on FaceTime for about 3 months straight laughing like kids …

🫤

Someone’s jealous THEY THREW THEIR LIFE AWAY. .. 2020 COVID how many lives I live and a strong foundation to HOW MANY BUSINESSES!??

- MY FUCKING HAPPINESS CHECKING YOUR EGO - UR BANK ACCOUNT I JUST STOLE 💋 

India love you should stop editing my Tumblr post and sending them to Woosah and whomever else in the fitness community because Shawty yes as a trainer it’s fucked up of you to promote her your page fitness I am or whatever you were but as your own self India I’m pretty sure somebody told you to stop and that’s why you stop training with who you stop training with. You started to take the lazy way out and feed your followers is fake fucking Insecure BBL lifestyle that falls back on you and the trainers your training with now you’re coming to them with my fitness guide saying I want you to just watch me do this or fill me do this so you’re paying them to promote my fitness guide bitch when you never asked me for that shit And what’s happening with you behind the scenes? How do you get my fitness guide in India? Why are you selling my shit with Evelyn Mazzio Rego? I’m suing the entire fitness community … INDIA YOURE NOT GETTING MONEY - BEYONCÉ LOST IT ALL THEN DID REAISSANCE AND I TOOK THAT BANK TOO.. NOW YOU GOING TO FEDERAL DEATH ROW FOR MAKING ME HOMELESS - the law degree you fucked for. , your knees. 

[minthe-lover]

Chapter 230 analysis.

Okay so this chapter fucking such, it's clear that rs is trying to remove any nuance from her story and just wants to push hades and persephone together. The next chapters are going to get worse and worse with rs just throwing away any important plot or persephone clearly stated comfort about how she wants her relationship to go. It's deeply uncomfortable to watch and it gets worse, Rs could have wrote a interesting and complicated view of motherhood in the face of immortality and in a world that abuses women. Instead rs just wants a creepy romance with nothing else to it.

Even with the amount of effort rs is putting into reckoning Demeter to be fully evil... she's still right. Plus rs just keeps drawing panels.. that are both creepy and that I can't help but see symbolize in ways that I'm positive she isn't intending the meaning. Like this panel, hades is covering her eyes to the truth of the situation and his arms are their threatening behind her a dark remember that he always has a hold on her.

Now lets start with just an extremely dumb reckon by rs with the whole dress thing. Now there are two big problems with it, the first being that in this chapter is clearly being written to be another way demeter controls her which is a connection that has never been made before. We've really never seen demeter mention the colour of her clothes.. we've seen a few mentions of persephone not wearing more provocative clothes around her mother.. which is just a completely normal thing to do.

Now the next big thing is that demeter is talking about the colour of the dress, and not like.. anything else. This completely falls flat because rs herself said that she dresses persephone in white to compliment hades black suits ie a bride and groom. We see persephone repeatedly choose to wear white in situation that demeter has no control over her... persephone almost always wears white.

Now again rs is making small things that make no sense if you think about it for like more then a few second. Before it was made very clear that demeter spring was super organized and planned, it was never described as having alot of pageantry nor as costly. The cost of spring was something never mention and it was all just magic.. their is no cost in that. Also if anything given how persephone idea of spring is explained, if anything she's the one with more pageantry.

Now again Demeter made a point that is right, Persephone has become incredibly materialistic. We repeatedly see her spending money on this unneeded and any anti-capitalism sentiments that she holds are all but disappeared. She's supposed to be this stronger willed and more self assured person but she still buckles and fails to even decided on her own coronation.

It's clear that hades is having a huge negative effect on her in that regard, he's a literal slave owner. he hasn't made any changes to how he rules or even acts as a boss. He's still a shitty and cruel person.. and persephone is following suit, she becoming a shitty and cruel person.

Now again rs keeps reckoning even simple thing that we've seen only a few chapters before. Like we saw just a few chapters ago we see demeter praise persephone but rs decided it wasn't enough so decided to change that... but even then the things that demeter brought up where like.. yeah persephone isn't fit to be queen.

At best we've seen her in charge of the mortal realm for ten years, and at least from what demeter has said she didn't really do the best. More importantly it's important to take into account that like.. yeah.. persephone isn't fit to fun the underworld. We haven't even seen her do anything in regards to that. We've mainly seen her treat the citizens of the underworld like shit, either threatening them or just scaring them.

We are supposed to take this as demeter being horrible and cruel.. but again she is telling the truth Persephone isn't ready to take control of a kingdom. She is responsible for the lives of others, we've already seen her use her status to threaten those beneath her. How is she going to deal with being a queen and the fact that people will not always like her because of that. We barely see her leadership skills, and the ones we are shown are on such a smaller scale then what she needs.

Again rs is desperate to make demeter such a huge villain but it falls flat because rs refuses to even like consider the flaws of the main characters and instead just pushes the romance of hades and persephone together.

Rs refuses to say admit how much of a huge asshole hades is! Hades is someone who has repeatedly fucked over demeter, going as far as basically verbally abusing her when she tries to become queen. We've seen him rush relationship and put his partners in uncomfortable situations they aren't comfortable in. Most importantly we haven't seen him apologize or even work towards fixing those mistakes he's made. Of course Demeter would be unhappy with her daughter dating him, especially when you take into account that she is absolutely terrified that her daughter is going to abused because she's a fertility goddess... powers that hades already has taken advantage of.

Last time demeter saw both of them they refused to properly communicate with her, and treated the mere mention of her bringing persephone home the same you would a death threat. I will admit that rs is great at writing.. of horribly one sided relationships and black and white mortality.

Again she had the opportunity to make a extremely heartfelt mother and daughter moment where she lets persephone and demeter talk about their struggles. We could let hades and persephone faults actually be questioned and have them grow into better people but nope! rs wanted a dumb plot line that *spoilers* ends up with hades having to "save" Persephone with a proposal! Cause you know just fuck persephone admitting she wanted there relationship to go slow!

Anyway my dream ending for this comic is minthe and demeter teaming up to beat the shit out of persephone and hades.

Also last note, rs please just give hestia a constant double chin. Stop being a fucking coward and half assing basically the only plus-sized rep you have in this comic.

[nymphsupremacy]

Hi, Hope you're doing good! I don't know if I should be sending critiques of LO or not, because I remember you once said something about you not being a critique blog anymore?

But screw it..

Anyway,I know it's been already adressed a couple of times, but one thing that never sat right with me with the fandom was that when it came to characters that were supposed to be "antagonists" (demeter,zeus, minthe, at a certain point thanotos)and the mistakes they made, EVERYTHING WAS BLACK AND WHITE , zeus is a satanic jerk and a power hungry monarch who only cares about his power and hates his family, minthe is an abuser and a horrible person , demeter is an abusive b***h who caused her daughter immense suffering, and when you attempted to bring up said antagonists' complexities and moral struggles you'd be deemed an awful person who defended abuse and misogyny.(one LO fan and an avid hater of demeter's character, for example, called me an "abuse supporter" and said "they were sorry for my future children because I was going to be a sc*m bag mom to them " and my favorite:of course you'd defend this , because it's so normalized to abuse children and put mental and emotional and physical suffering on them in asia" , I'm asian btw)

But.. when hades, persephone , hera etc made a mistake( Hades kidnapping and Eye-gouging some reporter dude and being a literal slave owner,persephone murdering hundreds of villagers ( yeah artemis and apollo did it too , but it was one family while perse almost killed an entire village and unlike apollo and artemis attempted to hide it)) the fans were all suddenly experts on moral complexity and morally grey areas, and would preach about how "not everything is black and white, nobody is perfect" which just seems very hypocritical, You can't be selectively open-minded.Either every character is viewed open mindedly or every one is viewed through a black and white lens.

phew, okay that was super lengthy,I apologize, would appreciate if you read it,have a good one:)

Talk about double standards. Fans do be like that alot so I understand the frustration all too well. I've seen too many people call others who defend and point out minthe's complexities as abusers told them that their mentally ill and should go to therapy. Personally I've had the displeasure of encountering a stan imply that I was a rapist apologist for liking LO Zeus when he's like very vanilla compared to his og self. People used to bring up his myth counterpart alot to shame me for liking LO Zeus

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Just a few basic definitions of deconstruction in literature" "Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and meaning." and "Deconstruction is defined as a way of analyzing literature that assumes that text cannot have a fixed meaning. An example of deconstruction is reading a novel twice, 20 years apart, and seeing how it has a different meaning each time." LO meets neither of these requirements, since it does not follow the original myth to begin with.

2. rachel truly has the biggest brain to not only make lesbians be the oppressors to the rich, heterosexual couple, she even made the lesbians oppress themselves. real 5D chess move there.

3. have you seen the lore Olympus au where they find out they’re actually trapped in smythes fan fiction and have to fight to reclaim their true selves/personalities because. Ther was a scene in it where real!apollo finally transforms into himself and saves LO!persephone from real!minotaur??? On god it was incredible

4. deadass its wild how like everyone and their moms (literally) can just stroll into hades' house all willy nilly? like at MOST i would be able to buy hermes and hecate being able to get in, but literally like?? no named flower nymphs can just stroll in? leto?? youd think the rich king with 7+ dogs would be able to like, invest in a lock at least.

5. What I wanna know is why smythe didn’t just use pan. Could be creepily older than her, historically known for at LEAST being sexually voracious (though I can’t say whether or not he was predatory) with a sadistic streak, a tie to nature that could make him obsessed with her, the fact that he could LITERALLY die at the end for a satisfying punishment? Girl Apollo was so nonsensical. If she’s gonna pick a random god to slander it may as well be one that makes sense

6. Still angry about Leto made into a SUN GOD that gaslights her kids. In the myth, Apollo & Artemis weren't known for wrath but one time they did team up to kill innocent mortals because a mortal woman shamed Leto for only having 2 kids (when fertility was highly praised). This story alone showed how gods are capable of horrible things because they don't put mortals on the same pedestal as their own.

If RS wanted to make Apollo a villain, at least make it like this story, where he's doing this out of love. Making Leto (a loving mother who's loved by her children) an abusive & manipulative parent served no purpose and instead just made Apollo's villainous arc clumsy because he didn't really CHOOSE to do any of it.

7. Rachel claiming LO is in the "monster boyfriend" genre is not only wrong, it's just insulting to actual monster fuckers. She could maybe argue it's a monster girlfriend comic, since hades gets off sexually to persephone turning into a giant and murdering people, but him?? how dare you. unless she means being a slave owner capitalist dictator is a monster, in which case maybe dont romanticize that kind of monster you white devil 💀

8. It's funny to see Smythe so against PJO given the fact that her and Riordan both regularly screw up their representation.

9. Tbh, I do not give a F * C K about his infertility. It doesn’t have to be shoved in the story and get the fans thinking Persephone will fix that because she’s a fertility goddess! I know I may sound rude but for Hades to lose his ability to give baby juice JUST TO BE KING??? Not a risk. What should’ve been his risk was knowing he would be alone in the underworld, just like it was addressed in his flashback of being eaten by Kronos. I have a ton of things I would like to say on Kronos as well but for now, I do not have any knowledge on Kronos in the original myth. 

10. tbh the fact lo hades wants kids yet shows zero actual empathy or patience screams he'd be a horrible father. for many of zeus' faults in myth, zeus fiercely loved his children and would do so much for them, especially his daughters. i know myth hades didnt have children but he seemed that he could be a strict but loving dad, but lo hades? nah, he seems too focused on himself and his wants to ever really give that up. Any kid he'd have would likely see their nannies more as parents than him.

[acegreenhorn]

Gotta rant here

In Dragon Age 2, a mage named Anders kills a handful of "innocent people" and that makes him "evil" and "just as bad as the oppressors". Get a fucking brain of you think that.

A system of oppression that's lasted a thousand years and killed COUNTLESS Innocents for circumstances of their birth IS NOT the same as revolting against that system!

Yes, there were innocent people who were not active in the system of oppression, but they are as Fuck weren't against it!

IT'S A FUCKING METAPHOR. The Chantry is Christianity, the Templars are Literally Templars, a system that we have/had here! Or you can call them Cops or Slavers or Enforcers. Mages are literally any group of people that were enslaved or colonized or nearly wiped out by Christianity.

To summarize. No one cries when they hear a slave killed their slave owner and the family. That's literally what happened in DA2. Anders was fed up, no one was listening to his peaceful protest, he was traumatized his entire life, and saw no other way to make people listen.

I don't fucking care that there were "innocents" in that building. They weren't innocent, they were all part of the problem. ESPECIALLY that Mother who didn't do her goddamn job of keeping the Templars in line. Just because she was "nice" didn't make her any less of a horrible person in the system.

In conclusion: "Anders is just as bad as the Templars" makes you braindead. Pee your pants.

[minthesupremacy]

You would think the people behind a blog praising "problematic" media and characters (one of their faves is RICK from rick and morty and rose quartz from SU omg stop) would be the first people to defend Minthe, not becoming bootlickers to a capitalist slave owner who likes em young and vulnerable? like you guys know if you lived in the LO universe you'd either be a lowly nymph like Minthe or his ghostly slave right? weirdos.

Literally! I like Minthe BECAUSE she's problematic, not in spite of it. I like Hades from Hadestown. He's a horrible person. I like Persephone from Hadestown, and sometimes write her worse than she explicitly is in canon (because HT unfortunately doesn't delve into the implications of Persephone's addiction & her callous words @ Hades in depth, so I have to do it myself!) But my point is, I like problematic characters. The more things they do wrong, the more I have to talk about and resolve! I love seeing internal logistics for horrible/morally gray people! >:D

[gffa]

I can’t believe this is unpopular, but just because Watto wasn’t beating them 24/7 and seemed to appreciate them does not mean he was a “good” or “kind” master. Anakin should not be grateful to him for not being worse, nor should he act as if his childhood wasn’t completely traumatic.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree There can be discussion about how what the particulars of Watto’s treatment of Shmi and Anakin looked like, how not all slavery is the US history chattel slavery type, that we don’t have to make Watto a specific type of slave owner to be “bad enough” to be a horrible person, when slavery is evil and traumatic full stop. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have evidence that Watto physically beat Anakin or Shmi, that’s not the thing that defines whether Anakin’s childhood was good or bad, it’s that Anakin was literally owned by another person that’s the traumatic part.  Watto actively chose to own Anakin and Shmi, he actively tried to keep Anakin for himself specifically because Anakin was valuable to him, there’s nothing good or kind about that.

[minthe-lover]

Analysis episode 210

Now the main thing I like about this chapter is that it shows Hades being an obvious asshole, hades was always kinda of an asshole but most of the time it's played off as either not a big deal or a joke. So having it written explicitly is a good thing the main problem is the story isn't written to probably make those traits good.

Now the reason stories with asshole main characters work is cause the asshole doesn't get what they want. Hades while yes he is improving on a surface level he isn't facing any consequences for his actions, in the end he will still get what he wants. Think of bojack horseman(spoilers), yes he improved and gets the life he does want but the reason it is so amazing is because he faces consequences for his actions... yes he gets a happy ending but he doesn't get the perfect life he wanted.. and he faces the consequences for hurting so many people and rightfully so. (and yes I feel like a should make the connection to penny and Persephone... cause yes nothing they did is illegal.. but it is gross)

Now another big problem about this chapter is something that is found throughout the whole comic, when people besides the main character express their anger they are viewed as overreacting and in the wrong. It was first shown best in the chapter where Minthe is turned into a plant.. Minthe insults Hades and is framed as a horrible person, but Persephone expresses her anger and turns minthe into a plant and that is framed as just a lapse of emotions.

In this chapter you have Hades objectively being a terrible person, ruining Demeters plan for a petty reason and then insulting her but that's the old Hades! he's not a bad guy! he didn't give up the volcanoes.. cause uhhh his dead mother?? so he's not a bad guy! but demeter I mean she got insulted to the point of tears and has her plans ruined and is rightfully angry but she is the emotional and terrible one cause she doesn't want Hades to get everything he wants!

When Hades or Persephone acts badly their is always an excuse and a good reason.. but when other people act badly.. even if their is a good reason they are horrible and in the wrong.

also side note... why does the vote have to be unanimous, like Demeter still got more votes... why the hell is this the problem. Also hades... you have brain cells right?? just make a plan with Demeter to let her be the queen of the mortal realm but you still keep the volcanoes.. like come on it's not that complicated.

That and I can't help but see the consent mentioning of how Demeter jewelry is junk and terrible, like she is one of the strongest gods with a huge fortune.. and her jewelry is shit? but even if they aren't... does it matter, why is this a point brought up twice, is it really that important to point out that Demeter buys beautiful but cheap jewelry... cause maybe it's just me but I prefer cheap beautiful jewelry to expensive beautiful jewelry.

Lastly Demeter is framed as a horrible person for not wanting for her daughter to be with someone who has been a huge asshole! She clearly has good reason to not want her daughter to date someone who has been extremely cruel and shallow along with being her age and a literal slave owner.

not to mention Demeter was repeatedly forgotten mistreated and framed as an asshole for rightfully being worried for her daughter. The story goes on and on about how Hades is ostracized and viewed as cruel... when the same thing happens to Demeter. Both Hera and Hestia say that their scared of her, it's clear she is pretty isolated from most of the other god as she seemed to be one of the few gods that stay in the mortal realm. Again Hades is framed as the only god in which this negatively effects them and thus should be given sympathy but anyone else should just be taken as face value.

Last point is about Persephone.

No Persephone isn't "thicc" or fat... yes in some chapter she has a much more sexualized body this but in this chapter she is skinny with just normal proportions.. like... I really pity the people who think she is fat or "thicc"... cause they must have a terribly skewed sense of how real bodies are. like holy shit the amount of people gushing that this is "thicc" just.. hurts my soul-

and to finish this off you all must be cursed with fuck up face... is this supposed to be funny??? cause it really just looks weird-

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Midnight”

Happy Saturday, everyone! I’d like to extend a formal congratulations to every Cinder fan in the community. Criticisms of the writing aside, you all struck gold with twelve whole minutes devoted to your fave and I’m absolutely thrilled for you.

We again start with a dark screen and some audio, in this case Cinder’s scrubbing. This technique—along with closeups on eyes—is a real favorite of RWBY’s this volume, to the point where I think they’re a little too enamored with it. But at least this is just a preference, not something that actively harms the storytelling in any way, so it’s welcome to stay. This time, unlike our premiere, we stay on Cinder as her life is summed up with three events intercut with one another: scrubbing floors, getting taunted by boys, and the sound of heels making their way towards her. It’s clear that Cinder leads a poor, miserable life, if her dirty clothes and stronger guys throwing her around is any indication, but all that changes when the rich woman says “I’ll take her” and Cinder is transported to a better life in a wealthy hotel.

At least supposedly.

Here’s my problem with the worldbuilding. This moment has Witcher vibes and Witcher, in turn, built itself off of a trope seen a hundred times before: A young woman is treated terribly by her family, is whisked away by a wealthy/powerful caretaker, and though her life has arguably improved, she quickly learns that the new world she’s entered is just as dangerous and harsh as the one she left. In Witcher’s case, Yennefer is a disabled woman abused by her family, bought by Tissaia, and taken to Aretuza where the other girls hate her and the curriculum is potentially deadly. Cinder is a poor woman arguably abused by her family (scrubbing)/the locals (fights), is taken by an unnamed woman, and whisked away to the swanky hotel where the daughters hate her and the work is potentially deadly due to shock collars. The difference between these two setups is that Tissaia bought Yennefer because of her magical potential. Why does our hotel lady take Cinder?

I mean yeah, obviously she wants a slave, but it’s a little weird isn’t it? Usually when a young woman falls headfirst into a new and questionable life, there’s a solid reason for her entry. This woman—whose lack of a name also says something about the worldbuilding—could have hired anyone she pleased to abuse. As we saw in regards to Atlas and Mantle in the past, every city has its poor and downtrodden. So what made her go out to some random farm and snatch Cinder up? It just, as always, feels a little too convenient. Cinder didn’t enter this life because something about her characterization or origin justified it, the plot simply ensured that she, out of everyone possible, and with very little reason, was the one chosen to follow The Plot™ .

It also messes with the Cinderella parallels. Originally (or “originally,” going off of Disney here which is likely what RWBY is using as a template too) it’s her step-family that abuses her and yes, we recreate that via the hiring (“hiring”—I doubt she was paid), but Cinder was already scrubbing floors back home. Her status as the servant already existed. So why change locations? Why not just keep Cinder as an abused farm girl, or have her a part of the hotel family right from the start? Part of the reason why Cinderella resonates is because of the contrast between the happy life with her father and the new, horrific life she falls into once he dies. Which is then further contrasted by the rest of the outside world. Fairy Godmother, Prince, and party-goers alike are all presented as kind, decent people. They represent the “real” world that Cinderella can escape to. By making Cinder’s original life horrible, her new life worse, and everyone connected with that life cruel and/or indifferent (with the exception of this one, special huntsmen)… you paint a very different picture of the world as a whole. Which is something RWBY has been vocal about trying to accomplish—it’s not a fairy tale—the only problem is with how these moments are undermined the second the story wants Ruby to ~Believe in People~. Cinderella is a story about enduring and eventually overcoming temporary hardship. Cinder’s story is about endless hardship that creates villains. A dark and fascinating story… but how does that fit into last week’s episode where Ruby told the whole world about Salem, expecting them to band together in peace and harmony? This is how Remnant’s world treats people when there’s not a global crisis, and Cinder isn’t even a faunus.

Which, I want to make clear going into the rest of this recap, does not excuse Cinder for her actions. At all. I think there are some complicated acknowledgements to be made in terms of her abuse and the Huntsmen’s responsibility in it continuing, but that does not give Cinder a blanket pass for all the horrific shit she has pulled over the years. Cinder didn’t just defend herself from abusers, she became one. More on that in a minute.

First though… is the Huntsmen’s name Rhodes? Did we hear that in the episode? If we did, I totally missed it because I have a note here about the one important character not getting a name. So yeah, idk. If we got this from more supplemental info, bad RWBY. If I missed it, bad Clyde. Either way, I’ll use that name going forward.

Back to the plot at hand. The hotel is, as said, populated by indifferent and shallow people and there’s no desert nearby, so I presume we’re supposed to be in Atlas? (Why did this woman buy a girl from another Kingdom?) There are customers getting drunk, flirting, and generally just enjoying their wealth, which harkens back to Weiss’ comment in Volume 4 about all their problems being superficial. We’re introduced to the owner’s two daughters who are, as expected, quintessential Mean Girls. 

They love ordering Cinder around, not just with hotel chores, but personal ones as well like, “rub my feet”… despite the fact that this place is massive and must have an equally massive staff to stay in business. Why aren’t the girls terrorizing anyone else? Again, it makes sense for Cinder(ella) to be the focus of their abuse when she’s in a single household, but transplanting that to a hotel raises a lot of questions that RWBY hasn’t bothered to examine. You can’t move a story like that and not think about what further changes that would evoke.

See, RWBY could have done something interesting here by considering some of those other changes. Like having one or both step-sisters be the one to help free Cinder from her abuse, playing the villain before becoming the fairy godmother. Up until she turns villain instead of hero, this is just Cinderella’s story copy and pasted into RWBY. It’s moments like this that should make us wary of using fairy tale allusions as evidence for our readings and theories. Whether RWBY is deconstructing or upholding a story varies wildly, and we never know what we’ll get until we actually see it on screen. Even then we can’t count on a choice remaining consistent, as we saw with Ironwood’s deconstruction being tossed out the window in Volume 7.

Cinder is originally just as meek as her fairy tale counterpart too. We don’t hear her speak until the owner is about to leave when she simply goes, “Food?” The sisters laugh at her and a roll is thrown to the floor with the comment that she should get busy because it “looks filthy.” I quite like that moment. Your job is to ensure the floors are clean enough to eat off of—literally.

We see a montage of Cinder doing just that, lots of chores, with a new song listing all the tasks she’s now responsible for. During this, Rhodes is seen in the background and witnesses when Cinder (presumably) first uses her semblance by heating up the brush and chucking it at the sisters, creating a massive cloud of steam.

 It’s that moment which “earns” her a shock session with her necklace and I’m staring at the screen, a little open-mouthed. I mean, that’s the second child torture we’ve seen this volume (with Cinder being ten here). Again, I’m not making a specific accusation, just going, “Really?”

Also, note the anti-faunus sign. Nothing like continually showing us racist establishments rather than actually writing a story that deals with the racism needless put into the story world. I’d like to remind everyone of my previous comments this Volume about how the story works hard to paint Mantle as sympathetic, but refuses to show anything that does the same for Atlas citizens, people who are in just as much danger with Salem as an equalizer. A whole city is not actually made up of shallow racists, the show is just showing us only those people to create a simplistic “They’re all bad” reading that encourages us to reject Atlas and, by extension, Ironwood. Weiss is walking proof that Atlas citizens are both complex individuals and capable of bettering themselves. If we can come to adore the Schnee heiress, we should be questioning why nearly every other citizen is painted as an abuser, too wealthy to care, or has conveniently left the story (Rhodes dead, Klein gone, Whitley rejected, etc.).

As Cinder is being tortured, we see that she’s forced to say, “Without you, I am nothing.” Now see, this is excellent... in theory. This is the kind of line we needed to hear with some consistency over the last seven years (if RWBY still insisted on waiting that long for a backstory), setting up that this line is clearly engrained in Cinder and she repeats it on instinct. Instead—to my recollection, anyway—we only get it this Volume, in two episodes. If it appeared before then it wasn’t notable enough to remember. I commented on this before, but it wasn’t a, “Ah, this line must be important” reaction, it was a “Lol why is RWBY using the same line twice? That’s weird.” By only giving it to us twice before the backstory and in such a short timeframe, the impact of this reveal is lost. We’re only now realizing that the line is important, rather than coming to realize why.

Our writers know just enough to recognize what techniques work, but not enough to have figured out what makes them tick. They get that providing a RWBY-vised version of Cinderella is cool, but not how to adapt that 100% successfully. They know that repeated lines have power, but not how to create good setup for the reveal. They know the camera should use closeups, but not what moments are important enough to warrant that. RWBY, eight years on, still feels like a newbie writer copying what the great stories are doing without yet understanding why those aspects work and, thus, how to recreate them.

I mean, Cinder’s backstory appearing now attests to that most obviously. I waved at the Cinder fans before, but the reality is that most viewers don’t care, either because Cinder herself is so bland, and/or because the story waited too long to make her a little more interesting. This entire flashback was handled badly simply by virtue of it arriving over seven years past the character’s introduction. 

So after this torture session Cinder steals Rhode’s sword. We hear some dialogue in the background of him getting pissed that it’s missing and the sisters promising to find it, implying that Cinder will have this tool at her disposal for a while. Instead, seconds later he’s found her hideout and confronts her. I don’t know if I’m impressed with Rhode’s skills, or rolling my eyes at how contrived this all is. Chuck in the question of whether Cinder was talented enough to steal the sword out from under him, or if Rhodes was stupid enough to leave it lying around, and I’m edging towards the eye rolling.

He dodges Cinder’s attack, rolls her more weapons to prove he’s not here to hurt her, and acknowledges that she’s not getting “the most fair treatment.” Okay, here’s where things start to get complicated. Rhodes tells Cinder she shouldn’t run away because then she’ll be running her whole life (don’t really agree with that). He likewise (rightly imo) tells her not to straight up murder them because look, no matter how much of a shit stain someone is, I can’t condone slamming a sword through their chest on an individual’s say-so (especially when two of those people are also kids growing up under an abuser, like Whitely). So what’s left? Rhodes says Cinder can train to become a huntress. At ten years old, she has seven years to prepare for the exam.

But she has to stay with her abusive family until then.

My problem is far less with the claim that this “has” to happen and far more with the writing’s failure to tell us why. Cinder could have begged to come with Rhodes and he says she can’t because… idk. Make up a reason. He doesn’t make enough to feed the both of them. It would be too dangerous out on missions without training and he doesn’t have a permanent place to stay (hence using the hotel all the time). He could even go the “They’re your legal guardians” route with more explanation because it’s arguable that Rhodes had no idea about the collar. Doesn’t mean Cinder’s treatment isn’t “that bad” in his eyes, just that he might not have known the extent and thus thought it was preferable for Cinder to put up with “just” being insulted and overworked until she’s 17. That this life that he only has a partial picture of is preferable to the life she’d have at his side. Something to explain the stakes here, the risks, and why he took this stance. 

And/or give us a reason why Cinder doesn’t try to run, a suggestion I make very cautiously because it’s not my intention to put the responsibility solely on her. This isn’t meant to be a “Just save yourself! It’s easy!” claim. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that young, barely trained kids go out into the world all the time in this show—Ruby, Oscar—and it’s an acknowledgement that Cinder tugged off her collar easy-peasy. The point is, practically speaking, Cinder could have left and braved the streets like Emerald did… so give us a reason why she decided to stay. Maybe she’s scared of living on the streets, acknowledging that a little food and a place to sleep is better than nothing. Maybe she’s scared that if she doesn’t have a direct connection to the hotel (convenience), Rhodes won’t train her anymore. Maybe, as an abuse victim, she can’t articulate why she won’t leave, she just can’t. Something to acknowledge these gaps because, right now, we just have the fandom going, “See? This is why the huntsmen are all evil cops. Rhodes took the lawful route and look where it got Cinder! He’s the responsible adult in this situation, so it’s all his fault.” Problem is, this take ignores: 

The fact that our heroes are also huntsmen and were pretending to be huntsmen before they had those lawful licenses. So what does that make them? We can’t continually criticize these professional roles without criticizing our heroes’ use of them as well. Ruby just ensured the world would take her message seriously by introducing herself as a huntress. We can’t condemn these laws and privileges while likewise letting Ruby continue to use them however she please. It’s okay if she’s a part of the system, because Ruby is inherently good! That’s not how this works. I’ve just described every American cop show that tumblr is currently turning against: The system is corrupt and needs to be overhauled, but our protagonists are different. 

The story fails to tell us why Rhodes won’t do more outside of a single line about Cinder being of legal age. That just acknowledges that age has some bearing on his decision, not whether it outweighs other considerations (can Cinder survive if she leaves?), or whether Rhodes even has a full picture of what’s happening to her (the collar). The takeaway is that we don’t know what his though process was because RWBY didn’t show it to us, not that his thought process is automatically awful. 

Rhodes, as a literal stranger entering her life, is not 100% responsible for what happens to Cinder. I know people don’t want to acknowledge that because leaving a child in that situation is absolutely horrific, but if RWBY wants to be ~realistic~ (and it does) then we need to acknowledge that reality too. If you saw a child employee getting yelled at in a hotel and then found her with your sword, would you rip the collar off her neck and be like, “Congratulations, you’re my child now”? Nice as that trope is, probably not! Or hell, maybe a lot of you would upend your life and risk legal action to whisk them away, but a lot of other people wouldn’t... and they're not the devil for doing what they can within the bounds of the law. The idea that because Rhodes unexpectedly had one (1) encounter with Cinder means he’s now responsible for her life and outcome is, well, crazy. “But, Clyde, you can’t just see that kind of horror and not do something about it.” You’re right. You know what you do? Tell the authorities. But does Remnant have the equivalent of social workers? We don’t know! Which means we can’t assume that Rhodes didn’t call them just because he’s a bad person. Or maybe they exist and the fandom considers them too corrupt to be useful, like so many other authorities in this show. So… what else is there for him to do? There doesn’t seem to be anyone above Rhodes that he can turn to, he doesn’t (for whatever reason) want to essentially kidnap Cinder and start a new life with her, so what’s left? Try to give Cinder a healthy relationship and a way to escape in the long run, which is precisely what Rhodes did. 

Honestly, I’m kind of salty that this guy went out of his way to help her, he saw what everyone else saw and was the only one who would help her, but because he didn’t do more—because he didn’t entirely upend his life and/or risk arrest to take her away to this hypothetically better situation—the fandom is acting like it’s his fault Cinder killed her abusers. It’s not. Cinder made that choice.

At the end of the day, blaming Rhodes reveals the expectation that it’s his responsibility to solve this massive problem purely because he had the bad luck to be the one Cinder stole from. That’s like telling a teacher who learns about abuse from a paper that following the lawful channels and going out of his way to assist the child in other ways is responsible when the kid murders their family one day. “Why didn’t you just barge into the house and take the kid?!” Because there are a hundred reasons why that would go incredibly badly? Rhodes can’t help Cinder if he’s in jail. Rhodes can’t help Cinder if she ends up dead on a mission while following him. Rhodes can’t help Cinder if their attempt at escape fails and she bears the punishment. 

The only thing I think Rhodes did absolutely wrong was giving Cinder the sword while she was still under the owner’s thumb. Stupid, but not cruel. And again, stupid does not equal blanket responsibility. I’m likewise seeing, “Rhodes gave her the sword and thus it’s his fault that Cinder got in trouble. It’s his fault they died. What was Cinder supposed to do, not defend herself?” Are people forgetting that Cinder stole the sword herself in the beginning and then readily accepted it again? She had agency in obtaining weaponry and what she wanted it for. Are people forgetting that, in accepting it, she likewise accepted the risk of keeping it hidden in the hotel? Are people forgetting that the time skip shows this happening years later and that Rhodes clearly thought Cinder was past her murderous streak? Are people forgetting that Cinder killed the owner by snapping her neck and resisting the shock collar, no sword required? She could have killed them any time she pleased based on the crime scene, whether Rhodes had given her a weapon or not. The weapon was just the catalyst that, truthfully, could have been caused by anything else. Cinder snaps when they find the sword and she’s tortured. Cinder snaps when she drops another tray and she’s tortured. She had planned to kill her abusers and never completely let go of that. 

Honestly, I’m just annoyed that we have another good hearted, takes action, does his best and makes some mistakes character getting blamed for everything another character chose to do, erasing their agency in the process. Rhodes did not abuse Cinder. Rhodes did not force her to kill her actual abusers. And Rhodes is certainly not responsible for what Cinder later becomes. Could Rhodes have done more? Of course, but every character could always do more. 

The tl;dr is that this complex situation needed far better setup in the show and the fandom needs to stop using that lack of setup as “proof” that characters are horrible people when they fail to magically fix said complicated, badly explained problems. Cinder chose to murder three people. Whether that was justified in the face of her abuse is up to you to decide, but it was still her choice. Please stop blaming the adult male characters for the choices the teenage girls in this show make. RWBY is too convoluted and attempting to tackle too many complex issues to reduce that to, “Every man here is the evil, responsible party and ever girl is a #queen. Even when they go on to murder Pyrrha ^_^” As a woman who would very much like to be rooting for the mostly-woman cast more than I now do, this isn’t the feminist take people want it to be.  

But I’ve jumped waaaay ahead. Let’s backtrack a bit.

That first interaction between Rhodes and Cinder is super weird because the camera keeps covering Rhodes’ face and I don’t know why. 

We segue into that montage of him training her for presumably years (Cinder’s hair changes) until we see him giving her the sword in what’s meant to be a moment of pride and trust. Soon after, Rhodes (randomly) comes back to the hotel when everyone else is asleep and hears noises in the back. Moving to check them out, he discovers that Cinder has murdered the two sisters and is in the process of murdering the owner, throwing back the line, “Without you, I am nothing, but because of you, I am everything.” Again, much more impactful if this had been a line we’ve associated with Cinder for years now, not a couple of episodes.

After she breaks the owner’s neck (damn, strong hand!) she tells Rhodes she doesn’t have to run anymore. Cinder clearly expects him to be happy for her and is shocked when he takes out his weapons.

I’m sorry, this is not a “betrayal.” Could Rhodes have just let Cinder go? Sure. Should he have? Given what she becomes, that’s very debatable! Rhodes clearly thought he’d helped her grow into someone who was not inclined towards murder (giving her the sword) and thus is probably going to be a little rattled when he walks in to find her killing three people. Again, there are obvious differences given the level of abuse Cinder seems to have suffered in comparison, but imagine that Glynda, after teaching Weiss for years, walked in on her killing Jacques and Whitley in revenge. Is she supposed to just ignore that? Shrug her shoulders and wish her well? I know a lot of people consider that the “fair” outcome given the inclusion of abuse, but that’s because we’ve had an omniscient view of Cinder’s history and insight into her emotional state. Rhodes doesn’t have that. All he has is his oath as a huntsmen to prevent things like, you know, murder sprees. I’m not going to delve into the overall ethics of a judicial system, either in RWBY or the real world, and thus I’m not going to make any naive claims about it being fair—it’s fucking not—but I don’t think the answer to these systematic problems is, “Why wouldn’t you just let the teenager murder three bad people and then go on her way? She totally deserved it!” Rhodes is not in a position to decide that, which is the entire point of having a judicial system in the first place. 

So Rhodes wants to bring Cinder in. Kind of like how Clover wanted to bring Qrow in once he had an arrest warrant. I can’t emphasize enough that wanting to start a legal process rather than letting clearly guilty/potentially guilty people go because they WANT to is not a “betrayal.” Regardless of what teen dramas may have taught us, you don’t have to potentially throw your own freedom and your morals away because you found out a friend is wanted by the authorities. Or you walk in on them currently snapping someone’s neck. There are options other than, “Believe your friend is right without question and help them hide the bodies” (looking at you, Maria, Pietro). Whitely is not insane for going, “Hey, can you not make me an accomplice to a crime by forcing your way in here with a bunch of fugitives?” I’m constantly surprised by the number of fans who can, in one breath, condemn characters for not throwing a middle finger up at the law and in the next praise Jacques’ arrest. Do we want to benefit from this system or not? If yes, that means you have to weigh which laws can be broken (such as in a protest), which should be obeyed (bring murderers and wanted men in), all while working to change the laws that are prejudice and aren’t working. 

Anyway, they fight. It’s short and sweet, backdropped by the large clock striking midnight, hence our title. I’m incredibly suspicious of Cinder breaking Rhode’s aura first, given that she’s still the student in training, but here we can more persuasively say he wasn’t fighting seriously, given that he then stupidly rushes towards her without a weapon. Still, that would be the second time now that RWBY has relied on elite fighters “holding back” to explain how the kids in training beat them, the first instance, of course, being with the Ace Ops.

Rhodes does rush Cinder though when she hits the wall and breaks her own aura, clearly concerned. She uses the moment to stab him with both swords. He uses his last breaths to put a hand on her head, conveying that he doesn’t blame her for how this all turned out.

Then Cinder pulls off her collar with a single snap and looks up at the broken moon, crying her single tear.

I’m dragging the flashback for multiple reasons, but I want to emphasize that I think this episode is leagues better from what we got last week. Absolute night and day. It’s just that, as always, improvements are incredibly comparative in RWBY. It’s not really good for numerous reasons… it’s just better than what we’ve gotten before. It’s “great” provided you go in with standards buried in the ground.

We then return to the present as Cinder wakes up in Salem’s whale. This scene gives us a great shot of her grimm arm, so cosplayers take note!

Emerald arrives soon after and immediately rushes to her side, expressing how worried she was. She grabs Cinder’s grimm hand without hesitation. Honestly, I don’t care much about either character… but this single frame activated some sort of ship button in my brain.

Not fully because I’m personally not drawn to toxic relationships in fiction (which, as I’m about to explain, would absolutely be the case here), but just the tinniest bit. Because I’m a sucker for monstrous people being loved despite their monstrous nature, so having Emerald take that hand over the other is like a ship speed run for me.

I’m predictable, folks.

But we need to talk about less happy things for a moment. I mentioned above Cinder becoming an abuser herself. I hope I don’t need to lay out the laundry list of murders, attempted murders, sabotage, and general taking-over-the-world-ness she’s engaged in since Episode One. Don’t let a sad backstory erase all that. Hell, for all we know the hotel owner had a horrific backstory too! Doesn’t justify how she treated Cinder. The point though is beyond her clear status as a villain, we now know that Cinder treats Emerald just like the owner once treated her.

Cinder was “rescued” from her life on the farm by the owner. Emerald is “rescued” from her life on the streets by Cinder.

Both realize over time that the situation they’re now in is actually worse.

Both reiterate that they “owe” the other “everything,” with Cinder having that shocked into her and Emerald seeming to willingly believe it.

The owner treats Cinder as a slave. Cinder treats Emerald as a slave. “Both of you, get out. I’ll let you know when you’re needed.” The only difference is that Cinder’s orders were things like “Scrub floors” and Emerald’s are “Convince an audience this girl attacked our ally.”

Both use threats to keep the other in line: the owner with her shock collar and Cinder with her Maiden powers. Cinder doesn’t need to resort to violence (yet) because Emerald adores her, but the threat is always there. 

There are even visual similarities this episode, such as kneeling and gem necklaces, though I acknowledge fully that those are just interesting details as opposed to anything like persuasive proof. 

The point is that Cinder became exactly what she hated, she just turned the dial up to eleven by going after the whole world instead of a single child. “But Cinder never had a chance to be anything else.” Sure she did. Blake and Weiss are proof of that. Even if we believe that Cinder was doomed to be a villain due to the extent of her abuse, what does that say about the hotel’s owner? We don’t know anything about her history, so what if she was abused too? Does that mean she was always “doomed” to treat Cinder that way? Does that excuse everything she did to her because she supposedly never stood a chance of becoming anything else? Of course not.

Though very iffily done, this is a commentary on the cycle of abuse. Each case is horrific, but it doesn’t excuse what comes later. Every abuser was once an innocent child and every innocent child has the capability of becoming the next abuser. Cinder’s life up until now was beyond awful and yes, she lacked a lot of privileges that others had to help them head down a better path, like Weiss’ wealth. On the other hand, she lacks other difficulties that would make that path harder for others, like Blake’s status as a faunus. Everyone has a choice to make: Will you treat others the way you were treated because that’s “fair,” or will you decide to treat others better than what you were dealt? There are lots of aspects that factor into the likelihood of someone choosing the latter—which is why I really like Rhode’s hand on Cinder’s head, acknowledging his understanding that she’s an abused kid taking the only path she thinks is available to her—but individual agency is by no means removed from the equation. Cinder escaped her situation and decided she’d never be powerless again. What does that mean to her, perhaps becoming a community member who works to prevent abuse like the kind she suffered? No, it means grinding the entire world under her heel until she’s the only one with power left.

This GIF continues to be the only one I need.

(No, the fact that it comes from a cop show and I’m using it for such an anti-law, anti-establishment story/fandom isn’t lost on me.)

(Also, if anyone is curious, this is why I love Ozpin. Out of everyone in this cast, HE has suffered the most, tenfold, and yet he still chooses to be kinder to those than they’ve been to him.) 

Anyway, I should really stick to the plot lol. Cinder realizes that her waking up means that they’ve lost, which I still think is BS. Cinder needed a win to come across as a formidable villain again and the likes of Neo, Emerald, and a Maiden with years of practice under her belt should have wiped the floor with a scientist, retirement grandma, and a girl who got the powers an hour ago. But I again digress.

Mercury reveals that he will no longer be following Cinder’s orders because Salem has a special job for him. They’ve all been told to meet on the bridge.

Then we cut to Ozpin and Oscar.

My poor boy is a mess and Ozpin is in the process of begging Oscar to take a “break.” “I would like to express again that this is my burden to bear, not yours.” Take note, fandom. In a few moments Hazel will accuse Ozpin of being a “coward” because “All this time, it could have been you, but you let him suffer.” I just know a bunch of people will be going, “Yeah! Ozpin just let a kid get tortured instead of him. WTF??” Okay 1. We should always be suspicious of agreeing with the takes villains have and 2. Oscar just refused to let Ozpin do that. It is—again—his choice because he thinks that Hazel is “holding back” with him. Oscar is being a brave and logical dude trying to make the best of this situation for both of them. Don’t take that away from him just to make Ozpin look bad. What would we even want him to do? Take control back? The fandom has been yelling at Ozpin for that since Volume 5.

So they’re going back and forth when Oscar suddenly announces that they “can’t leave yet. This is our chance.”

Ozpin even says he thinks Oscar must have taken one too many hits because… yeah. What? Long story short, Oscar recognizes that they’ll never be this close to Salem’s subordinates again and that they should try to undermine her from the inside out, just like she’s done with the world since she knows she can’t take on everyone at once. I love Oscar taking charge here, I love them speaking in unison, I even love the hope of achieving something epic while in captivity despite my own belief that Oscar should break and reveal the Lamp’s password. What I don’t love is:

Another messy, unexpected belief that Salem made her choices because she “knows” she can’t win any other way. Except that—like Ruby’s line in the recording—Salem’s current attack blows that idea out of the water. She IS taking on the whole world. Granted, Ozpin and Oscar presumably don’t know that the whole world literally knows of her existence now, or that Salem was smiling about it, but they do know that she’s attacking Atlas head on. What else is that except a declaration of war with all of Remnant?

The idea of undermining Salem from the inside via Hazel. For anyone who reads my other metas, I just said that this idea wouldn’t work because Emerald isn’t the one torturing him, the one character who has consistently demonstrated hesitation (or, now, Neo). Hazel despises Ozpin so much that he would never listen to him. He despises him so much he doesn’t even see Oscar as his own person… at least he didn’t before. That’s been retconned now with Hazel going “easy” Oscar and having an actual conversation with Ozpin. Whereas before, he was slamming Oscar into walls and screaming about how he’s going to kill the “murderer” of his sister. They basically softened his character to make this plan possible.

The fact that this scene came about without Oscar and Ozpin ever getting to reconcile their problems. Last we saw them, Oscar was saying how he hated that Ozpin came back and refusing to acknowledge their merge. Now, they’re working together like they’ve always been solid allies. I get that the danger they’re in helps to put it all into perspective, but why can’t we get a few lines of them hashing this out? Or at least putting things aside until they’re out of Salem’s clutches? If you don’t need to re-write Hazel’s character with “he’s going easy on me” lines, you can use that space to deal with the conflict we’ve already established. Especially given the strange choice to have Oscar refuse to give up control and be the one coming up with this plan... but then Ozpin does take control and (maybe, see below) enacts it? I feel like we’ve missed huge chunks of this story. As it is, I wonder if RWBY will bother coming back to this. The questions of if/how Oscar will accept Ozpin and if/how he’ll reveal this secret to the group feels like they’re being swept under the rug and it will likely go unnoticed by a lot of viewers simply due to how intense the kidnapping plot is.

So things are a little messy, but otherwise enjoyable, and they’re about to get downright confusing. For me, anyway. See, Hazel reveals that he follows Salem because she can’t be beaten (cue my continued worry about Ruby telling the whole WORLD). She “can’t be stopped. She’s a force of nature,” and Ozpin is fighting a “cause with no victory, no end.” He yells back that “Someone has to try!”—bless this man—and then looks down at the ground going, “Salem can be fought. Unless… she brings the Relics together, if that happens…” and mentions summoning the Gods.

So here’s my confusion. The scene makes it feel like Ozpin is planting some sort of seed in Hazel’s head. He and Oscar JUST got done agreeing to try and undermine her from the inside out, then we get this line that feels like him “accidentally” dropping a secret that will turn Hazel against her. Except… Ozpin doesn’t lie here? The line isn’t useful to them as far as I can tell. They are screwed if Salem gets the Relics. …Right? Because if not, why the hell have the heroes been working so hard to keep them out of her hands? So I can’t decide if:

A) This scene is just written badly and none of this is part of the plan to undermine Salem.

B) Ozpin is going, “NO. Don’t collect the RELICS. That would be the WORST THING EVER /s” in an attempt to trick Hazel into doing it anyway and this is somehow supposed to hurt Salem, despite being presented since Volume 5 as the worst outcome for our heroes? 

C) Ozpin specifically wants Salem to make the mistake of summoning the Gods because he thinks he’s completed his task? Or something? But what in the world would make him think that—especially without seeing Ruby’s message (not to mention the lack of unity that mess should cause)—or what makes him think the Gods would just destroy Salem regardless of what he’s achieved? If summoning the Gods was ever a defeat Salem option, why hasn’t he done it before?

I’m leaning towards A just because it makes the most sense by far, but that would also mean we had Ozpin and Oscar decide on this plan, have a chance to start this plan… and then didn’t actually do anything. Yelling at Hazel for following Salem isn’t a new strategy, they were doing that before, so what’s new? Or has the new strategy not been revealed yet? Idk, as happy as I am to see them being BAMF together, I’m slightly unsure about how it all hangs together. I’d much rather have an internally consistent and clear outcome that’s predictable (Oscar breaks or just holds out until rescue) rather than what appears like a super cool, badass, unexpected plot on the surface… but crumbles once you poke at the foundation a bit.

So whether Oscar and Ozpin started this plan or not, they’re dragged into the throne room where they’re forced to kneel before Salem. Yikes. She sits on her throne with the Hound, who I’m only now realizing could be read as a messed up Toto

We learn that Tyrian heard from Watts about his incarceration and hacking Penny. What? Okay, I took the time to go back through “Amity” just to find this screenshot.

That’s not a working Scroll! Idk what I thought Watts might do with it at the end of last week, but it wasn’t send a full, uninterrupted message to Salem that updates her on everything that’s gone down in Atlas. This thing is toast! Moments like this make me question how much communication there really is between the writers and the animators, despite last Volume’s disaster with Oscar telegraphing his punch like whoa. Are we still getting that level of miscommunication? 

Salem then punishes Cinder for disobeying her by hurting her grimm arm. See, this here (for me, anyway) is the mark of a newbie writer. When the moment first started I went, “Oh nice. Just like the shock collar!” Then the scene made that abundantly clear by cutting to flashbacks of Cinder in her collar. That’s too heavy-handed. We already got the parallel, but then the show went, “Do you get it??” It shows that the writers are too scared that the viewers won’t get it, that their nuance will be lost, so they scramble to make it as obvious as possible, rather than trusting in their own writing.

And if you’re like, “So you want RWBY to be more clear and also… less clear?” the answer is, sadly, yes lol. The things that are already confusing due to retconning and inconsistent themes need to be made explicit, whereas the details that are already strong don’t need an in-your-face, “Okay, but did you really get the parallel here? We’re just making sure.” It’s like launching into explaining why a joke is funny when it’s already landed vs. telling a nonsensical joke and then waiting for the laugh that will never come. RWBY struggles in both areas.  

Salem delves into this speech about how this is actually all her fault and she should let Cinder spread her wings or something. AKA, go free Watts and track down Penny. Then you can have your precious Maiden powers. 

There’s a massive earthquake across Mantle and we watch a + medical symbol go out. Again, heavy-handed. We don’t need that in order to understand that the whole city shaking while the grimm look happily up to the sky is a bad thing.

We cut to Winter listening to the Ace Ops complain about Penny. She tells them to act like the elite they are, likely because she hates how they refer to Penny as “junk.” Still being set up to betray Ironwood, I bet. During this scene we learn that they have “confirmed visual of her leaving Amity. She appeared to be malfunctioning.” So Penny is alive? Also, they have eyes on Amity Tower and were able to see Penny leaving, but didn’t see any of our trio coming to launch it in the first place? Did Ironwood want it to launch? Did they see Cinder? I just don’t know.

Before they can get there though a message from Jaune comes through. Serious kudos to Team JNY for asking that “anyone” respond/taking the personal risk of calling for help in the first place. They’re finally putting—as Harriet says—they’re own selfishness aside in favor of the greater good. Yang obviously hates that it’s “you guys” they ended up with, but she’s not outright attacking the Ace Ops or anything. I’m like,

Excellent job, Yang. 

Jaune is a little harsh in his panic. He said in his message that a “large mass of grimm” is heading towards Mantle and then when Harriet leads with asking about Penny, wants to know what’s wrong with her. Why are you asking about Penny when lives are in danger and “it’s” (the grimm) are “right there”? Except he, uh… points at nothing. There’s the chasm with (I presume) the weird grimm goo down it? Not sure based on the shot, but the Ace Ops expected a “mass of grimm” and then land to see no grimm anywhere nearby. So yeah, they’re more focused on the missing Maiden than the seemingly imaginary enemy Jaune is freaking out about.

They only get on board when the river launches itself at Atlas.

So the goo is, like, sentient before it becomes individual grimm? Or Salem is controlling it from her whale? Either way it’s BAD.

I want to briefly gripe about how the hell everyone is watching this. What, is there a camera conveniently trained on this one random part of Atlas’ underside and everyone’s scrolls tuned into that the second the attack started? It seems far-fetched, to put it mildly. In RWBY’s favor though, I want to acknowledge that we finally have appropriate expressions for the situation! This is good!!

I’m going to level with you all. My notifications have known no peace since I made the mistake of criticizing the adored trio that is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. I thought supporting Ironwood would get me heat. Nope. Not supporting the main girls is what did it and honestly? I shouldn’t have been surprised. Last week I pointed out that having them smile and, in Ruby’s case, coo during a moment of horror is not good animation and implies some pretty uncomfortable things about their overall sympathy level. The image in question: 

It doesn’t set a good tone, especially when we add in what we’ve gotten for Ruby’s group across the rest of this volume. The counters of, “They need and deserve a break. Why won’t you let them be happy?” fall flat when we ignore that this group has been animated as consistently goofing off post-premiere. Sneaking into the guarded military base of a former friend? Tube shenanigans! Need to find your way around? Funny Penny moment! Semblance reveal? Cutesy chibi explanation! Need to do more sneaking? Silly coffee plan! Nora gets electrocuted? Joke about how awesome that was! Even Wiess telling Whitley to go to his room reads as funny to the audience.

Ruby in particular has been a problem, given that she’s our main character and the others’ leader. We take our emotional cues primarily from her. Alongside being a part of all these fun and games, her animation during more serious moments has been less than stellar. This is Penny when Nora goes down.

This is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. No worry, just focused on the fight.

This is Penny when the fight is over.

This is Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. No worry, just chatting about suspicious activity.

This is Penny in the airship, worrying about Nora and the situation they’re in. This is also Ruby in the airship, apparently not worried at all.

This is Ruby when she learns her uncle is in jail. Is there shock? Fear? Horror that he might be in serious trouble? No, she just maintains the same emotion she had before: fury at Harriet.

So when we reach them watching the recording and they look like this:

No, I’m not convinced that this trio is taking the situation seriously, or that they really care about the people involved. I know they’re supposed to care, they all obviously care from a meta perspective, but the “obviousness” of that only exists in our personal understanding of the characters if we don’t see it on screen. I completely believe that Penny is worried about Nora because she’s animated expressing that worry. I completely believe that JRY are in the middle of a warzone because they’re (mostly) animated as fearful and angry. The rest of Ruby’s team has a scared line from Blake and Weiss holding Nora’s hand, whereas the majority of the emotion across this adventure has been indifference or playfulness. That’s a problem given how horrible the events of this Volume have been, most of which the group is aware of. 

All of which is an incredibly long-winded way of saying that this

finally feels appropriate. Well done, RWBY. 

Alright, this recap is already over 7k long so I want to return to our plot with the summarized: IRONWOOD WAS RIGHT. He said they couldn’t withstand a head on attack by Salem and he was right. It literally took seconds for her grimm to burrow into Atlas, knock out a tower, and disable the shield. Everyone still claiming that leaving is useless because it’s oh so obvious Salem’s grimm could fly however high it wants (when did we learn that?) are ignoring that leaving was at least a plan with some kind of hope attached to it. And, given her focus on the Staff, may have saved Mantle by drawing Salem’s attention away from the city. The point is we don’t know. All we do know is that Ironwood tried to do something in the face of hopeless odds, Ruby’s team stopped him, and now look, everything is awful. No one could have possibly seen that coming. 

Salem: “It’s time.”

I’m very pleased that Salem is finally using the tools at her disposal. Upon reflection, I still don’t buy why she had to wait. “Well, she was waiting for the grimm goo.” She couldn’t have used flying grimm to take out the tower? Take a burrowing grimm and give it wings? She couldn’t have used the goo that was apparently inside her whale the whole time?

It’s all very convenient. In the sense that we’re drawing out the volume by having the villain inexplicably hang back, despite not having a good reason to. In the sense that—unless Ruby’s message comes back to bite her—the villain’s passivity also conveniently let the heroes accomplish the one goal they were desperate to achieve. All of that’s still not good, but at least the Volume seems to be moving out of the “not good” category and into the “slightly better” territory. 

Although, as I just acknowledged to a friend, RWBY seems to alternate for me. Every time I have an episode where I think, “Okay, there are still massive problems here, but I can see a glimmer of hope” the next episode is inevitably the pits. 

Still, grabbing onto that hope with both hands: Atlas should be decimated, folks! Grimm are swarming, our idiot heroes herded everyone directly under the city, the world should be panicking, and the cold should still be killing people if the story remembers that it exists. At this point my only question is wtf our heroes are supposed to do next, but regardless of what the plot gives us, it’s going to be wild. You all know what’s coming. Next week is our final episode before a two month hiatus, which means we’re going to witness all kinds of awful and then end on a six week cliffhanger. It’s inevitable, so best to emotionally prep for that now lol.

I don’t believe we have any Bingo updates, with the exception of edging towards a few: “Winter betrays Ironwood,” “Army of grimm conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians,” “Atlas somehow survives,” and “Ironwood dies” being the most notable. We’ll have to see what, if anything, gets checked off next Saturday.

As always, thank you so much for reading (I feel like I don’t say that enough :D) and I’ll see you next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[justalitlecreacher]

All the ways Darth Vader may have been prevented (a likely incomplete and out of order list because I haven’t seen all of Clone Wars or Revenge of the Sith)

(one of these things alone may not have prevented Anakin’s fall but I’m reasonably sure that at least some of them combined would)

TL;DR; the Jedi Coucil consitantly treated Anakin like they didn’t care about him or his mental or emotional well-being, and I fully believe that if they hadn’t done that they may have been able to prevent Anakin’s fall to the dark side

  Obi-Wan listening to Anakin about his dreams/visions of his mother’s death I stead of just telling him to stop having them (I know that Ahsoka didn’t go to Obi-Wan or Anakin with her own visions so she obviously got different responses but notice how her visions literally saved Padmé’s life?)

   Not constantly treating Anakin like his feelings were wrong and he just shouldn’t have them; I understand that attachments aren’t the Jedi way but Anakin has them and telling him to stop having them is wildly unhelpful

   I havent actually gotten around to watching this arc becasue i saw the second episode’s description and went “thats fucked up” and didnt watch it but I’ve read a description and MAYBE just maybe it was not a super good idea to have Anakin Skywalker, former slave, pose as a slave owner? Literally what the fuck Jedi Council (I know they couldn't have foreseen Anakin being found out and then enslaved but seriously what the fuck they had to have known that was a risk right?)

   Now this one might be a stretch but i think that maybe not faking the death of Anakin’s father figure/mentor who practically raised him from the age of 9 and then just not telling Anakin that it was fake until Anakin figured out for himself that Obi-Wan was alive could have gone a long way in not having a Darth Vader on our hands. They really went through all this and saw nothing wrong with it; Obi-Wan really thought that manipulating and exploiting Anakin’s emotions like this was in any way ok. On top of that i honestly do not understand why they even needed Obi-Wan to fake his death and go undercover anyway; none of the information he gathered looked to be vital to the mission. (also i know Obi-Wan doesnt know about what Anakin did on Tatooine but i sure did i was genuinelly worried that Anakin was going to unalive Obi-Wan.) Really all this arc did was cement the fact that the Jedi Council has no problem with using Anakin and his emotions no matter how much it may hurt him (and this isnt even touching on how this plan may have affected everyone else they didnt tell). It also alienated Anakin from the Jedis even further by proving to him that they dont tell him everything if they decide he doesnt need to know. (I honestly think this arc was instrumental in creating Darth Vader; it definitely wasnt this alone but this was a big part in it)

This one is genuinely speculation because they really don’t show Anakin’s training or what was involved in that(not as far as I’m aware anyway but if they do please tell me I’d genuinely love to see it) but I feel like more couldve been done about the fear that Yoda claimed to sense in Anakin when they first met. Going off what I’ve seen in the movies and The Clone Wars so far most of the reactions Anakin gets to the crime of having feelings/attachments boils down to “stop doing that” with little to no advice on how to actually stop doing that or at least do that in a way that doesn’t end in his emotions overwhelming him all at once and leading him to do things he regrets

(More speculation) from my POV it really looks like the council encouraged Anakin to push his emotions down and ignore them rather than work through them. This may have been unintentional, but someone should have made sure that Anakin knew the point wasn’t to not have the feelings at all but to learn how to work through them and not let them consume him or cloud his judgement. This misunderstanding likely led to Anakin ignoring his feelings until they became too much and overwhelmed him, leading to him making horrible decisions/ doing genuinely terrible things in fits of rage (see Tatooine)

In the end I know that Anakin is his own person who made his own choice, but holy shit the Council really did not help him.